Scores of Moroccan health workers streamed to a spacious white tent erected outside the Avicenne University Hospital in the capital, Rabat, to get their first dose of COVID-19 vaccines, as a mass vaccination effort began on Friday in the North African country.
The bustling vaccination center — one of 600 set up in Rabat alone — aims to inject more than 4,000 health professionals with vaccine doses within three weeks.
That is an example of the ambitious targets set by Morocco, which has one of Africa’s most advanced COVID-19 vaccination plans in place so far.
Photo: EPA-EFE
While European countries and North America started vaccinating several weeks ago, Africa is only just beginning to receive its first doses.
Moroccan King Mohammed VI received the country’s first injection on Thursday, while nationwide vaccinations began on Friday just as the country confirmed its first case of the virus variant first identified in Britain.
Among the first people to walk in to the university hospital tent was Abdelatif Asmamaa, a 58-year-old nurse who has been working on the front lines of the pandemic since March.
Before the first of his two doses was administered, Asmamaa, who has high blood pressure, was greeted by medical staff who inquired about his health status, then proceeded to inject him with the Covishield vaccine, developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca.
‘It’s an exciting atmosphere,” he said, checking a document indicating when he would receive his second jab. “I feel nothing, it’s like the seasonal flu shot.”
In cubicles scattered across the tent, other nurses, doctors and Moroccan Ministry of Health personnel were getting the shots simultaneously.
Similar scenes unfolded at vaccination locations across the North African kingdom.
A government vaccine deployment plan said that about 3,000 sites would be set up in total, including mobile units that would deliver shots in remote and rural areas.
The country’s vaccine rollout initially targets those most vulnerable to the virus, including healthcare workers, security forces and other public authorities, and people aged 75 or older.
The AstraZeneca vaccine, produced by the Serum Institute of India, is one of two vaccines used by Morocco in its free immunization drive. The other is developed by China’s Sinopharm.
Both vaccines require two doses and do not need ultra-cold storage.
Morocco aims to get 66 million doses of the two vaccines, covering about 80 percent of its 35 million population.
Asked what criteria determine the shot to use, Mina Ait El Qadi, the hospital’s pharmacy director, said that it is a decision made by the government’s scientific committee.
“We don’t really have a saying in choosing which vaccine to administer,” El Qadi said. “We work with what they give us”.
Morocco has seen a drop in confirmed virus cases recently attributed to a dip in testing.
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